hey were crushed by misfortune and fear; the toils were
closing on them, and they knew it, nor could they lift a finger to save
themselves.

Francisco knelt and prayed, Leonard and Juanna sat hand in hand
listening to him, while Otter wandered to and fro like an unquiet
spirit, cursing Soa, Saga, and all women in many languages and with a
resource and vigour that struck his hearers as unparalleled. At length
he vanished through the curtains, to get drunk probably, Leonard
reflected.

However, the dwarf sought not drink, but vengeance. A few minutes
later, hearing screams in the courtyard, Leonard ran out to find himself
witness to a curious scene. There on the ground, surrounded by a group
of other women, her companions, who were laughing at her discomfiture,
lay the stately Saga, bride of the Snake. Over her stood her lord and
master, the god Jal, his left hand twisted in her long hair, while with
his right, in which he grasped a leather thong, despite her screams and
entreaties, he administered to her one of the soundest and, be it added,
best deserved thrashings that ever fell to the lot of erring woman.

"What are you doing?" said Leonard.

"I am teaching this wife of mine that it is not well to drug a god,
Baas," gasped Otter; then added with a final and most ferocious cut,
"There, get you gone, witch, and let me see your ugly face no more."

The woman rose and went, cursing and weeping, while the dwarf followed
Leonard back into the throne-room.

"You have done it now, Otter," said Leonard. "Well, it does not much
matter. I fancy she is gone for good, any way."

"Yes, Baas, she has gone, and she has gone sore," replied Otter with a
faint grin.

At that moment a messenger arrived announcing that Nam was without
waiting for an audience.

"Let him be admitted," said Juanna with a sigh, and seated herself on
one of the thrones, Otter clambering into the other.

They had scarcely taken their places when the curtains were thrown
back and the ancient priest entered, attended by about a score of his
fellows. He bowed himself humbly before Juanna and the dwarf and then
spoke.

"Oh! ye gods," he said, "I come in the name of the People of the Mist
to take counsel with you. Why it is we do not know, but things have gone
amiss in the land: the sun does not shine as in past years before you
came to bless us, neither does the grain spring. Therefore your people
are threatened with a famine, and they pray that you m